Tuesday, April 01, 2008

On The Mark -- Water Everywhere Except Our Faucets

We're supposed to get a decent soaking tomorrow, our first for a while, and maybe our last until next winter. The forecast reminded me of something that irked me greatly during our last rainfall but never got around to writing about.

Six weeks ago or so California, from the northern border to Mexico, got a good soaking and lots of snow in the mountains. So much so that one would think that our drought situation in Southern Cal might have been alleviated somewhat. Not enough to ignore our situation, but enough to not worry about it quite so much.

But no. While the rain was falling heavily for several days in Los Angeles, and the snow was packing the mountains in the Sierra's, we heard "experts" over and over tell us that this precipitation would have little to no impact on our drought because "we" haven't been able to figure out how to properly capture and store this new water. Even the melted snow wasn't a savior as it also ran wastefully into areas that didn't run off to our reservoirs, dams, and water storage systems. Most of the rain in Southern California ran straight into the ocean.

Like our gas prices that soar because our refineries are outdated and too few (while the oil companies make billions in profits every quarter), our energy and water costs continue to climb and the possibility of water rationing in the summer remains a real threat. In fact, one major L.A. city (Long Beach) has already declared a water emergency and the Calleguas Municipal Water District recently launched a "Put A Cork In It" (faucet) water conservation campaign.

Whenever it rains here people are inclined to say, "We need it," implying that the rain is really an inconvenience but we'll put up with it because it's rescuing our problem.

I'm afraid, folks, that it's an inconvenience only. It may be something we need, but it's not doing us any good.

1 comment:

Orange County, CA has their conservation program that is very good, but has been tagged with the name from "Toilet to the Tap," but the water has been recycled and purified.

This country is supposed to be so inventive, but we only get there when the alternatives are bad to worse. A free market doesn't always inspire competition just greed and monopolies more often than not.

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